


Resolute

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Character Study, Cute Immortal Husbands, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Feelings, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, TOG Discord Secret Santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: Under a clear, windless sky—a blue-green-grey Yusuf believes he might have seen before only in his dreams—his companion shoots him a radiant glance, nearly needful, and says, "I am starting to believe I care for you a little," words perfectly guileless.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 35
Kudos: 230
Collections: Secret Santa Fics





	Resolute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marwankenzari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marwankenzari/gifts).



> @ Lyra: I tried to do the Origin Story™, but I ended up with pure feels rather than anything even remotely historical. Hope you like???

Under a clear, windless sky—a blue-green-grey Yusuf believes he might have seen before only in his dreams—his companion shoots him a radiant glance, nearly needful, and says, "I am starting to believe I care for you a little," words perfectly guileless.

His words spoken in that voice—the one he uses equally, it seems, to greet passers-by and ask for directions and inquire about how they might earn coin in a new town and challenge small children at the market with riddles—rattle around Yusuf's head for so long any answer delivered now would come across as disingenuous, despite Nicolò's little smile at the corner of his mouth. Yusuf has no defences anymore against that smile.

He clears his throat louder than he meant to before saying, "What am I to do? Beat at my breast?" Face feeling warmer by the second with Nicolò's eyes watching him like a hawk, narrowed and keen even as he shrugs almost casually to say, "I thought it would be of interest," Yusuf is truly lost for a reply but for a vague, "Hmm."

But Nicolò does not make demands or command him to speak plainly. It's never been _like that_ between them.

Instead, he turns to stare ahead of them at the first rays of orange crossing the sky dragging the sun into pinks and the warm darkness of night.

Or perhaps the apricot tree flowering on their meagre plot of land is what has drawn his eyes away from Yusuf's.

Or, better yet, the dusty road, leading _away_.

But, later, he leads a by-now familiar way inside for the night, his mattress across the room from Yusuf's, who falls into a deep sleep out of _self-defence_. His dreams build themselves brick by brick into an impenetrable wall, eyes squeezed shut to avoid the broad planes of Nicolò's back and wisps of hair darkening his pillow.

By morning, his movements have grown tentatively familiar like the fresh well water Nicolò brings in and heats by the hearth for Yusuf to wash first or breaking their fast in the silence of another clear morning.

Seated across from him, Nicolò's eyes are almost too blue-green-grey for Yusuf to bear.

*

Among the plethora of ways it could have happened— _they_ could have come about—there are some scenarios more likely than others.

*

They stop actively trying to kill each other about a decade in.

It's a long fucking decade for numerous reasons, from what Joe can recall of it, not least of which because Nicky refuses to die at either his hands or anyone else's, although, by that point, Joe probably would have cold-bloodedly felled anyone who would have dared touch Nicky in his stead. He didn't have the language back then to explain why and what that was even to himself, but he remembers feeling it _everywhere_.

He glances across the table at Nicky as they recount the family-friendly version of their history to Nile, and he remembers the sun's heat on his face, the hot sand sinking beneath his feet, and the scent of salt and sweat and blood in the air they breathed between them. The blade might have cut deeply, but Nicky's stare cut him deeper still.

*

Tomorrow becomes tomorrow, which becomes yet _another_ tomorrow for Yusuf to fret over as Nicolò goes about his day as if neither has spoken. As if it's all the same.

Apricot blossoms turn to fruit, the weather permitting an ample harvest from their solitary tree, but Nicolò stews the peeled halves in honey for hours before Yusuf has the chance of a taste before it's cooled enough for a proper meal, and then only from the tip of the large wooden spoon Nicolò used to stir. Their eyes lock as Yusuf swallows down sweetened bits of fruit, and he's sure it's nothing less than delicious, but he swears he can hardly taste anything at all.

For days and weeks afterwards he avoids Nicolò's gaze, who waits him out as one might a frightened pair of eyes shining from the depths of a darkened undergrowth under a starless night.

Because the pounding in his limbs never ceases these days, Yusuf can never be sure he's not shaking himself apart braced for the most innocuous word from his lips falling _wrong_ and shuttering Nicolò's open face but immediately. Thankful as he is for Nicolò's patience, the easy kindness of time, he cannot but feel that the _right_ words might never come. From dawn until dusk, his mind cannot stop unspooling itself into tangled ribbons of dread and regret.

But, although the words do not come, none of the sweet syllables his heart tells him he should know already as to bestow upon Nicolò at every step, their days grow warmer even as autumn turns to winter. Their mattresses meet against the wall and their blankets cover their intertwined bodies barely separated by tunics, until one morning, sunlight hardly brightening their window, as uneventful as any other dreary winter's day, Yusuf mulling over what might become a not unpretty poem given time enough for him to mould it into an adequate confession of some sort of intent, Nicolò's hand brushes the back of his neck as he hovers over him at the table and leans forward to place a plate in front of him.

Yusuf doesn't startle, but he trembles thinly at the contact, a touch he's avoided in the light of day even as he pushes into it in the comfortable blackness of their nights sleeping into each other.

Turning, he catches Nicolò's eye, whose smile seems to dim until it's replaced by a thoughtful little look Yusuf hasn't had the chance to spy before now. Another treasured expression rising to the surface. He doesn't know what his own face is doing to warrant it, or what he's supposed to say or do to bring it about again, already planning for a future when he can work his way towards glimpses of it, but his heart calms infinitesimally under that look and the back of his neck where Nicolò touched him flushes to a fever, but he's never felt more content.

He blinks, and then Nicolò has breached the distance to press his forehead to his, a light touch, hardly worth thinking about at all, were Nicolò's lashes not fluttering against his cheeks and Yusuf's own heart pounding inside his chest. Between them, their breaths mingle for a long moment.

*

The poem might have come later. Probably did. A version of it, at least. Over centuries, sketches and paintings and plays. Words and colours and brush strokes.

Yes, there are too many ways in which they could have come about, the two of them. All the possible, and perfectly adequate, little choices leading them towards each other.

Joe happens to love the way it actually happened the most. The most imperfect one of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this was to your liking, Lyra! <3 <3 <3
> 
> Tumblr: [rhubarbdreams](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com/)


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